I can no longer contain my happy mutant self – I can finally announce a new ALA member interest group called Library Boing Boing. It’s a new group full of awesome and win and triple rainbows (yeah, we’re one-upping everything). But what exactly is LBB, you ask?

On the one hand, Library Boing Boing is a collaboration between ALA and the fabulously amazing Boing Boing folks to highlight all of the great new things libraries are doing. The most visible result will be regular posts about those great new things on the Boing Boing site itself.

On the other hand, Library Boing Boing: The Group has its own goals to help happy mutants in local communities connect with their happy mutant librarians to do good, work together on our shared interests, and make the world more better. Here’s the official mission and goals for the group, as noted on the petition that LBB co-convener Jason Griffey submitted to ALA today.

Mission:

To bring librarians and Boing Boing readers (aka, Happy Mutants) together to generate support for and raise interest in libraries via projects at local libraries.

Goals:

Help find and propose content about libraries that could be posted to Boing Boing.

Provide active ways for Happy Mutants to support and get involved with their local libraries (eg, toolkits, best practices, ideas for local projects).

Create dynamic programming at library conferences that Library Boing Boingers can then take outside of the library community to promote libraries (eg, SxSW, local community events, etc.).

Start dreaming big. What could a dedicated, motivated, inspired group of librarians do with both Boing Boing and their own local happy mutants? How can we spread Library Boing Boing goodness throughout the profession? I’m thinking of things like LBB Kickstarter and getting the first librarian speaker at TED (hopefully just the first of many). LBBers could also host local Boing Boing meetups at their libraries, and the LBB group could create a toolkit interested libraries can use to get started holding their own meetups.

Needless to say I’m pretty excited about this project. The co-conveners for the Library Boing Boing member interest group are Andrea Davis, Jason Griffey, and Patrick Sweeney. I’ll be a staff liaison, along with Tina Coleman. All that’s missing is you. We’ll be posting more details in the community, but we need your help to get the ball rolling. Sign the petition, join the community, and roll up your sleeves, because we have a lot of great work to do together.

I’m totally psyched about this, in case you can’t tell, but I’ll need your help to pull this off so I appreciate your support.

To answer Cheryl’s question about what laypeople can do to help, we’ll have a form up soon where you can submit story suggestions for Boing Boing. That’s the major startup piece so that we can build a flow of new content to post.

Then do the “dream big” part over in the Connect community so that we can hit the ground running with ideas. I know there’s a lot more we can do than just the ideas that I’ve posted there.

Lisa, if you’ll be at Midwinter, the LBB meetup will totally be drinks and gamestorming, but the virtual version is the Connect community. 🙂

[…] On the other hand, Library Boing Boing: The Group has its own goals to help happy mutants in local communities connect with their happy mutant librarians to do good, work together on our shared interests, and make the world more better.” (from the ALA Marginalia blog). […]

[…] ALA Happy Mutants Rejoice! Library Boing Boing is here with its inaugural post! This is something that Iâ€™m very excited about, but havenâ€™t had a chance to be as involved in as I originally would have liked (sorry Jenny and Jason). Basically, the amazing and wonderful Jenny Levine from ALA put together an opportunity to post to the great website boingboing.net using the name Librarylab. The content will be based around libraries and exposing all of the amazing things that libraries do for people on a non-library based forum (which you know I support). […]

Actually, Library Boing Boing isn’t U.S.-centric at all. We’re already talking to folks at CILIP and IFLA about posting info about international libraries, and we’re open to collaborating with other library organizations. If you’re a member of one and would like to discuss how to get involved, feel free to email me at jlevine [at] ala.org.

[…] cash incentive to librarians who write articles for non-librarian publications. Jenny Levine formed Library Boing-Boing, an effort to bring together librarians and the readers of the popular BB site to raise interest in […]

[…] things that are already starting this year. The first of which was created by Jenny Levine and is Library Boing Boing. Thereâ€™s going to be another epic set of conferences and Iâ€™m excited that I will be presenting […]

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